seisan-line

Easy mass-production of fine-tuned vmware/virtualbox VMs.
'seisan' == 'production'.to_japanese; therefore 'seisan-line' == 'production-line'.to_japanese

Components of seisan-line = veewee + origami (+ puppet, eventually):

• veewee = creates Fusion box based on definition.rb and kickstart file--ks.cfg.
• origami = creates definition.rb and ks.cfg.
• (puppet = manages veewee and origami && send products to the right places)

Note (As of Aug 22nd, 2012): EL 5 and 6, Debian 6, Ubuntu 10.04/12.04, and SLES 11 are supported.

Installation

Dependencies:

• VMFusion
• ruby >= 1.8.7
• fission (for stopping vm)
• rbvmomi (for marking the exported vm a template)
• other gems required by veewee

Procedure:

git clone git://github.com/akumano/seisan-line.git
cd seisan-line
git submodule init   # 'origami' and 'veewee' are used as submodules
git submodule update # fetch repos as specified in .gitmodule
gem install fission rbvmomi
vim lib/seisan_config.rb # edit it
touch ~/.seisanrc.yml
vim ~/.seisanrc.yml # see example
# The lines below set up veewee.
cd veewee
gem install bundler
bundle install # This gets all necessary gems for veewee
cp seisan-line/veewee/fissionrc.example ~/.fissionrc # Then edit this file. Read comments.
mkdir seisan-line/veewee/iso # put your isoimages here
                             # change seisan-line/origami/definitions/seeds/iso_file.yml accordingly
# veewee is now ready to go.
# One next thing to do is setting up environment to create definition.rb and ks.cfg,
  which 'origami' takes care of.
# Take a look at seisan-line/origami/lib/inventory/[kickstart|preseed|autoinst|definition]/seeds/*.yml and change installation options.
# The format is fairly straight forward. Read origami's documentation if you'd like.
# The end.

Examples

Example 1: Create CentOS-5-32-PE definition, inspect it, then build Fusion box.

1. Create definition for veewee: seisan --name CentOS-5-32-PE --define

2. See veewee/definitions/CentOS-5-32-PE/[definition.rb|ks.cfg]

3. Have veewee create the box w/ gui: seisan --name CentOS-5-32-PE --build --gui

4. Veewee will spit out the box's ip address when it finishes building. A command to ssh into the box would be

   ssh -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -p <port> -l <user> <ip.address>

   (By default, <user> = root, <passwd> = puppet)

Example 2: Build all Ubuntu boxes, send it to vSphere and templatize them

1. Create a file ubuntu_names.txt containing all Ubuntu names:

    Ubuntu-10-32-PE 
    Ubuntu-10-32-FOSS  
    Ubuntu-10-64-PE  
    Ubuntu-10-64-FOSS
    Ubuntu-12-32-PE
    Ubuntu-12-32-FOSS
    Ubuntu-12-64-PE
    Ubuntu-12-64-FOSS
   

2. Have 'seisan-line' act on the file:

    seisan --file ubuntu.txt --build --bootstrap --vsphere --templatize
   

   For each box it will take just a moment to create definition, 510 minutes to build a rather bare-bone box, 0.51 hour to export it to vsphere and another instant for templatization.

Usage

Important:
SLES network interface name is not persistent. It often changes between eth0 and eth1. I have even seen eth2 or 3. By default, seisan-line is robust enough to support eth0~5 in anticipation of even more outrageous situations. If ethN, where N>5, ever appears, go into origami/lib/inventory/autoinst/autoinst_base.erb edit it to deal with the situation. Find all locaitons in the config file where eth1 (or eth0) is mentioned, and create corresponding entries for ethN.

Commands:
(I will use the term ks.cfg as a generic configuration file for unattended installation procedures such as 'anaconda', 'preseed' and 'autoyast'.)

• -d, --define, --bootstrap:

  • Create a definition for veewee to work on.
  • A definition directory, which contains definition.rb, ks.cfg, and post-install scripsts, is created under veewee/definitions.
  • In addition, ks.cfg and definition.rb will be copied to the webserver you specified in seisan_config.rb.

• -b, --build:

  • Build a VM. A definition must exist prior to building. Using the --bootstrap flag with the build flag will create a definition then start building a box.
  • Force option (--force): force creation of VM even if a VM of the same name exists (i.e. destroy the pre-existing one).
  • GUI option (-g or --gui): launch up VMFusion GUI while installation
  • (Not implemented yet) VirtualBox option (--vbox): make a small change in definition.rb to tell veewee to build a VM with virtualbox.

• --vsphere:

  • Export a VM to vSphere. lib/seisan_config.rb needs to be edited.

• --templatize:

  • Mark a VM in vSphere as a template. lib/seisan_config.rb needs to be edited to use this flag, as well.

• --destroy :

  • Destroy an existing VM.

• --list:

  • List boxes that are ready to be built.

NAME format:
NAME must meet the following format: <distro>-<version>-<arch>-<type>, where the ones supported by default are:

• distro -- CentOS, RedHat, SL, Oracle, Ubuntu, Debian, SLES
• version -- (EL) 5, 6 ; (Ubuntu) 10, 12 ; (Debian) 6 ; (SLES) 11
• arch -- 32, 64
• type -- PE, FOSS

How to:

Change installation options

Take a look at origami/lib/inventory/[kickstart,preseed,autoinst,definition]/seeds/*.yml and change installation options. The format is fairly straight forward. For example,

# pkgs.yml
---
Oracle:
  '5':
    PE:
    - openssh-server
    FOSS:
    - openssh-server
    - ruby
  '6':
    PE:
    - openssh-server
    - git
    FOSS:
    - openssh-server
    - git
    - ruby

means Oracle-5-<whatever arch>-PE will be built with openssh-server installed, Oracle-6-<whatever>-FOSS will be built with openssh-server, git and ruby installed, and so on.

Read origami's documentation if you'd like > http://github.com/akumano/origami

Note that you can only change the following options by modifying yaml files: pkgs, kickstart_file, iso_file, os_type_id, iso_file, boot_cmd_sequence, postinstall_files, and reponame. Other options are shared among all installations. To change those options, see 'HowTo: Change pre-defined installation options'

Add a new type of an existing distro

The only way to do this currently is to manually a new key-value pairs in each origami/lib/origami/inventory/[kickstart|definition]/seeds/*.yml file. A more convenient method to modify the yaml files is coming up soon. Also, the directory structure must comply to the naming scheme in use, and they are not automatically generated. Hence if you wish to create a new type you need to create new directories under definitions (not veewee/definitions). For example, here's the directory tree of my default.

Add new OS

If your new OS uses kickstart, preseed or autoyast, procedures to adding the OS is identical to adding a new type (see the previous entry). Otherwise, create a new directory under origami/lib/origami/inventory, and copy structures of other inventories. For example, inventory/kickstart has this structure. definition_base.erb is a master template for definition.rb with some parameters extracted. These parameters are what you create yaml files for. Place the yaml files in seeds/ directory. Then configure origami to read your new inventory. This is done across codes under lib/origami/core/.

Change pre-defined installation options (such as network, firewall, and so on)

These options are defined in *_base.erb files under origami/lib/origami/inventory/*/.

VirtualBox instead of VMware (not supported yet)

Use --vbox flag with either --define or --bootstrap. This will change the disk_format in definiton.rb from 'VMDK' to 'VDI'. Alternatively, you should change the option in definition_base.erb if you use VirtualBox primarily.

To Do

• Read inventory automatically
• --vbox flag
• An abstraction layer over seed yaml files
  e.g. seisan --config CentOS-*-*-FOSS --param pkgs --val [openssh-server, ntp, vim, emacs, ruby] changes hash values of keys that match CentOS-*-*-FOSS in pkgs.yml to [openssh-server, ntp, vim, emacs, ruby].